UKH

I have some ski touring boots listed for sale on Facebook, and someone is trying to talk me into what I think is a scam. However, I can't work out what the scam is!

They seem too keen, not asking normal sort of questions etc. Said they will come and get them on their way to work tomorrow morning but want to pay electronically tonight so I can mark them as sold. I asked if they were local, as my address isn't very easy to follow. I said I would give directions rather than address (not uncommon in this area), and they just said they know the area we'll. 

It all felt a bit off, so I said I wanted payment on arrival, happy with electronic but I want to do it once they are here. They told me they had been previously robbed at knifepoint when buying stuff which is why they won't pay on arrival. (Again, very dubious in this area! Most people don't even lock their doors). 

After insisting that I want payment on arrival, I haven't heard again from them. 

Am I right in thinking it's a scam and what is it?

Sounds like a scam to me.

I imagine it will be something like they will want to pay with paypal and then you will receive an email with something that looks like a receipt for say £100 more than they should have sent. Followed by "oh dear, we sent too much, can you send back the difference?" etc.

I would usually say to trust your gut with these things and if it feels off or too good to be true, it probably is! I’ve been scammed from Facebook marketplace myself.

That being said, if they’ve offered to pay upfront and you can ensure that it’s gone into your account before you mark it sold then you could arrange to meet in a mutual area if you’re uncomfortable about them coming to yours? Always use something like PayPal as well for buying and selling on marketplace.

Trust your gut!

I’d guess he is going to send you a screen shot of a ‘payment sent’ screen showing he has sent you the money. 
 

You won’t get the money. He wont turn up because something happened. He will then aggressively ask for his money back and threaten you with either the police or violence unless you send his money back.

It might possibly be once you said yes then they just happen to send to much to you and ask you to repay it.

With the original too much either being a fake payment site (click here to see the paypal transfer) or one they would dispute claiming you didnt provide the goods in question.

Check their posting history and location. I put something up for sale locally and my inbox litup from Eastern European scammers. Really easy to spot, they’d recently joined the group and all their likes and other groups were never local.

Keep it simple, you want cash on collection, take it or leave it.

If you're a lone female, make sure you have some of your burly male relatives or friends lurking in the background. 

They stopped talking to me when I said it had to be payment on arrival. So that's all good. 

In my area, I genuinely wouldn't ever be worried about people coming for things. It is such a safe area, and I have a lovely but nosey neighbour! Nothing bypasses him!

Sounds like a scam to me.  See this for example:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cermdkj009mo

This every time,  they check the goods, if happy hand over the cash, job done. 

If they are worried about being robbed at knife point  it doesn't matter if they paid before or not because you could pull a knife and ask for more. 

They will either send too much or apply for a refund claiming you never sent the goods. 

Payment is a tricky topic.

I sold a washing machine* on Facebook when we moved house. Chap that turned up tried to pay with Irish pounds, pretty sure they were fake. Got him to go away and come back with English ones.

Top tip - don't let anyone load anything into their car before you are happy you've received the money.

And take pictures of them with the goods as proof they have received them.

I've sold a few items on Facebook successfully - but also had a load of scammers try it on.

* washing machines (and other similar goods) is a scam on it's own where fraudsters will buy a working machine to replace a knackered one of exact same model/strip it for parts and then claim it doesn't work, return the junk one and get their money back!

You can mark them as "Pending" on Facebook. Lots of people mark the title as "SSTC" or similar, too (Sold subject to collection).

If they can get to your house tomorrow, between now and then they can get to a cashpoint.

You see the electronic money in your account, but it's not actually there until the funds clear. During that time in limbo you give them the goods and they disappear. The funds then fail to clear. You have no money, and no goods.

If someone wants you to mark something as sold you can do that easily for them, they don't need to give you money.

The usual scam we see here is someone offers something for sale like a 3 piece suite, you tell them you want it, they ask for a deposit to hold the goods for you, you pay it, they disappear with your deposit. Never pay deposits.

I'd say, the moment it feels off just forget about it. 

The one I had on Facebook was some offering to pay electronically then were going to send someone else (their 'brother') to collect. It was off; they were buying a £800 bike but asked no questions and offered full asking price.

I told them I'd only hand it over to someone who'd show ID that matched the payer as it's far too easy for them to claim the payment was fraudulent and get it reversed. At this point they disappeared.

Yup, that’s the one that someone tried to pull on me. 

Also applies to second hand cars. My partner sold her old one to someone claiming he desperately needed it to get to work the next day. He wasn’t interested in a test drive. Felt a bit odd, but ok maybe he was desperate and in a rush and it was only about £800. Surprise surprise the next day he phoned up to say it wouldn’t start and he wanted his money back claiming all sorts of legal protection he had, getting quite aggressive. It had never failed to start the whole time she owned it. We couldn’t work out what the scam was because she already had the money and he was now the registered keeper, but decided he must have stripped out some parts overnight.

Edit to say he obviously didn’t get his money back and eventually gave up.

This happened to a mate of mine with an IPhone, it was a top end model, 1 year old and mint condition. He sold it, took a load of photos and sent it off well packaged. 5 days later the buyer put in a PayPal claim saying the phone was damaged. PayPal sided with the buyer as they always do and refunded the buyer £800. The phone came back totally mullered, it looked like someone had been playing football with it. 

Best guess is the buyer had a damaged phone, bought this one and swapped the case and screen then returned the broken one. 

Another PayPal incident that happened to a friend is they sold a new iPhone and met in person to exchange the goods however the buyer paid via PayPal.

The PayPal account belonged to someone else who had been hacked so they put in a claim for the fraudulent payment. PayPal acknowledged the fraud and refunded the true PayPal account holder but left my mate £500 out of pocket.  There's a clause buried in their terms and conditions that seller protection only applies if you deliver the goods by post! Not in person!!